Disclaimer: I’m an intermediate surfer. This post is for people a step or two behind me, so your mileage may vary – let me know what I’ve missed in the comments.
I’m convinced that most surf coaching videos and websites spend way too much time talking about the pop up* and way too little time talking about paddling and, specifically, about the part when you actually catch the wave.
We spend roughly 70 percent of our time on the water – and an even larger percentage of our energy – paddling. There’s nothing more exhausting and demoralising then paddling hard for waves and repeatedly missing them – so it’s worth a little effort to learn to paddle well and particularly to paddle to catch waves efficiently (using as little effort as possible) and effectively (i.e. paddling in the right way at the right time and place, and in the right direction).
Most of videos you’ll see about paddling are obsessed with the “cobra” position – paddling with an exaggerated arch in your back – as the critical technique for creating extra paddle power by improving the leverage in your strokes and/or engaging your core. I think that the paddle-power argument is wrong.
Don’t get me wrong – arching your back (a bit) is very useful for a several reasons. It may help with keeping your head still (reducing drag from rocking on your board) and keeping your core engaged for balance, and it does help you keep a better eye on what’s going on around you. But the main reason that it’s important is because of how it actually helps you catch waves at the critical moment, and I almost never see this emphasised to beginner surfers.
If you want to jump straight to the punchline, see Why arching your back helps you catch waves, below.
Rob Case: arching less to paddle more efficiently
Surf paddling coach Rob Case has done the hard yards here with his excellent videos and blog posts. His video The Most Common Surfing Fallacy demonstrates at least a couple of cases where paddling with less of an arch leads to better efficiency and a huge saving of energy:
In his excellent blog post A Case for the Three Stroke Burst he sets out a few key facts, the key one being that we don’t catch waves by matching their speed when we paddle.
He points out that even strong paddlers can’t paddle as fast as any but the smallest, slowest waves. Longboarders paddle at around 3-5 mph (1.3 – 2.2 meters/second) and shortboarders are slower – but the waves we want to catch move faster than this:
I’d also really recommend his post on gradually increasing the power through each stroke to avoid “slipping”.
So how do we catch waves?
Actually catching waves (being able to do it as opposed to knowing the theory of how to do it) is really a knack, a kind of bodily intuition. It only comes with (a lot of) practice, but two key insights that might help you pick it up faster are:
- That when you’re surfing you’re not really being pushed along by a wave, but rather sliding down it as it rises beneath you.
- That you don’t catch a wave by matching its speed by paddling (you can’t), but by positioning yourself in the water and on the water so that the wave can (more or less) catch you.
Three kinds of positioning
There are at least three** kinds of positioning to think about when catching a wave. The first kind is being in the right place at the right time so that the wave has a good shape and is steep enough (but not-too-steep) to allow you to catch it. This is hugely important but has been covered well elsewhere. (e.g. here, here, here, and here).
A second kind of positioning is the angle your board is pointing in relation to the direction of the wave (see here and here).
For our purposes, we’re interested in a third kind of positioning: the orientation of your board (nose-up, flat, nose-down) in relation to the surface of the water or the face of the wave. A successful entry onto the wave requires you to transition the orientation of your board from lying flat on the water – or more likely tail-down (legs-down) – to being nose-down (head-down) with the wave rising behind you so that gravity can do the work and get you sliding down and across the wave.
Why arching your back helps you catch waves: the position transition
This transition from being legs-down to being nose-down on the wave is why arching your back when paddling for a wave is so helpful, and not because it lets you paddle faster. In fact, if you can get this right sometimes you’ll be able to catch waves without paddling at all.
When you arch your back you bring your body-weight (mainly your head) further back on your board, enabling you keep the board quite flat on the water despite your torso being positioned slightly further forward. This means you have the correct trim for paddling (a common guide is to have the nose of your board an inch or two clear of the water) but still have the ability to move more weight forward by putting your head down and “throwing” your weight down the wave. (Note that the actual pressure on your board is from your chest, not your head!) You can see the this clearly (along with a variety of pop up techniques) from some of the world’s best surfers in the video below just as they take their last strokes.
Getting your head down and forward gets the board pointing down the wave and lifts the tail to get you sliding on the wave – meaning that your last couple of powerful paddles are also pulling you down the wave, rather than dragging you through the water in front of it.
The cork takeoff is a way of achieving the same thing, and a good way to learn the feel for getting your weight down the wave. It’s incredibly gratifying – and learning to do it well has the added benefit of allowing you to turn quickly and catch a wave when, say, someone else has missed it.
Two problems – one solution?
The two most common problems for beginner surfers learning to catch unbroken waves are both largely remedied by getting enough line-speed down the wave (remember that speed comes from sliding, not from paddling or being pushed along).
If you’re failing to catch the wave and being left behind, learning to get speed from the wave – in combination with two or three well-timed, powerful strokes down the wave as it lifts you – will give you the speed you need so that you get on the wave and don’t get left behind as it goes by.
If you’re nose-diving or being thrown over the top of the wave, the extra energy you pick up from the wave will give you a better chance of successfully catching the wave either when it’s less steep, or of doing an angled takeoff so that you don’t have to plunge straight down the face of the wave but can rather cut across it, which also allows you to move away from the most critical (i.e. breaking) part of the wave.
Pop culture
If the waves aren’t too crazy you’ll find that when you get this right, there’s a moment after you’ve safely caught the wave when you’re perched in the pocket at the top with plenty of time time to choose your line before making a leisurely pop up and dropping in with your board fully in control. (See these guys, and especially Mark Richards at 6:08, for a series of leisurely pop ups – note also how far his head and shoulders are in front of his hands).
You’ll use less energy, have more fun and be able to surf well for longer… giving you many more chances to work on the actual surfing part of your surfing.
*The pop up is of course, important, but it’s rarely the limiting factor. You can do it pretty badly on the kind of waves you’ll be surfing as a beginner and intermediate and get away with it. You need to learn the basics of getting to your feet, but in order to refine it you’ll need to have, you know, actually caught a wave. If you missed the video above, you can see a load of pros pop up with a variety of techniques here. The most useful thing from this video is seeing how they position their leading hand forward – often palm flat on the board, not holding the rail –Â to start their bodies turning and open up space for their legs. This video from Ombe Surf on how most pop up advice is unhelpful is really good too.
**A fourth might be where you are in relation to other people, both those in the lineup and other beach users, and to any other hazards.
See also:
Move to get a better view
Making your own waves
Boardroom: Lessons from Surfing (1) – In the Water
Boardroom: Lessons from Surfing (2) – Whose Fool?
Boardroom: Lessons from Surfing (3) – Dings and Scars
Boardroom: Lessons from Surfing (4) – Tao, Timing, Vectors
As You See (Lessons from Surfing #5)
Siddhartha at the beach (Lessons from surfing #6)
Conditions (Surf Lessons #7)
Rip Curl Reefer Split Toe Surf Booties Size help